9. DAY TWO: THE PREDICAMENT
Ava
The smell of eggs wakes me up. The island, the cannibals, and the stranger named Dax, must have all been a dream—and now everything is as it should be. Preston must be preparing to bring me breakfast in bed. I smile before opening my eyes but my visionary bubble explodes, leaving me to see only the reality I’d hoped would vanish last night with the setting sun.
Dax sits by the fire, carefully scraping two eggs from a smooth stone that sits in the middle of glowing coals. He places the eggs on a palm leaf using a spatula-type tool made from what appears to be the bark of a tree. He looks over and sees me watching.
“Oh, good. You’re awake. I made you some eggs,” he says in a most cheerful voice, placing them in front of me before splitting two more eggs onto the rock. “Some mother bird isn’t going to be very happy when she comes back and finds an empty nest, but I’m starving and you need some strength if we’re going to venture outside today.”
I sit up, and then I gingerly touch my forehead. The pain has improved from yesterday, and I wish I could say the same for my mood.
“Thanks,” I say and then force a grin. “So you’re a baby bird killer and a cannibal. I’m not sure you’re the best company to keep.”
He smiles but keeps his attention on the eggs. “Who says I’m a cannibal?”
“Well, are you?” I ask, studying his reaction.
He turns his head to look at me, his blue eyes vibrant even in the dim light of the cave. “That depends. What’s your definition of a cannibal?”
I stop chewing and stare at him in disbelief. “Either you are or you aren’t. The answer should be obvious. Have you ever—?”
“So if you pluck one grape and eat it in the grocery store, does that make you a thief—branding you for life?” he says, waiting for me to contemplate the comparison.
“I guess not, but—”
“Okay, so I don’t consider myself a cannibal.” He throws me a short smile before peeling the eggs from the rock with the spatula and dropping them onto the palm leaf in front of him. I watch him blow on them to cool them off, and then he starts to eat them with his fingers.
“So you have?” I ask, soft but with an accusing tone because I sense he really doesn’t want to talk about it. My curiosity got the better of me.
He sighs. “I had to. When the Anwai allowed us to stay and live among them, they wanted to make sure they could trust us. So a few months after we arrived, they killed a member of the tribe they believed was a Khakhua and had a big feast. My dad, Roxy, and I all tried it because my dad said our survival depended on it. I haven’t had to since.”
I stare at him dumfounded. “What does it—?”
“It tastes like pork,” he says with a hint of impatience, making it clear this isn’t something he plans to discuss in depth. “Oh, I have something for you.” He reaches in his pocket, and then extends his arm to hand me Preston’s name tag.
I inhale sharply and practically snatch it from his fingers. “Where did you get this?” I say, and my voice is barely above a whisper.
“I found it on the beach this morning during low tide.”
“So that’s good, right?” I say frantically, and watch Dax’s brow crease with concern—or confusion, but I’m too excited to care which one. “I mean, this means he’s here on the island somewhere.”
Dax stares at me for a second too long before he looks away and focuses on the fire. He shifts uneasily and runs his fingers through his hair before speaking.
“Ava, I don’t think—” He stops and glances at me before continuing. “I guess it’s possible.”
I sense his reluctance in telling me what he really thinks. My irritation drowns out the voice in my head telling me to let it go. “But..?”
He clears his throat. “But I think it’s more likely that it just washed up on the beach. I walked all around where I found it and didn’t find anything else. No footprints. Nothing. And if he was here, don’t you think he’d stay on the beach and look for you?”
I nod my head and blink back tears.
“Maybe he’s hurt, or searching the entire island.” I pause, knowing I sound absurd, but I refuse to give up and I’m determined to stick to my original plan. “So when we leave here, can we go look some more?”
“I told you—I already looked,” he says gently. “Besides, wandering around isn’t a good idea. There are boundaries, and yesterday, you crossed into Lambai territory when you ran away.” His enunciation of the last two words suggests he is still irritated with me for doing it. “Besides, I still have to introduce you to Roxy and the Anwai tribe. But I want to take you somewhere else first until I’m confident my plan will work. And we need to leave here soon, before some of the men from the tribe come to the beach to check their nets.”
“If you won’t go with me, I’ll look for him myself.”
He laughs. “I thought I made it clear before. It’s not a smart idea to wander off alone.”
I cross my arms and stare him down, letting him know my intentions are serious. He appears to be assessing my stubbornness, and now a sly smile crosses his face.
“Okay. Fine.” He stands up and throws his palm leaf in the fire. “We’ll go look after I take you to my special place and after I convince Chief Anwai to let you live.”
“No. We look first,” I demand.
He smiles and shakes his head, then saunters over to sit on the ground in front of me. He holds up one hand, palm side up, then curls his other hand into a fist on top of his palm.
“Let’s go. Rock, paper, scissors. Best two out of three wins,” he says with a playful smile. “If you win, we go look first. If I win, we look later. Deal?”
I can’t believe my ears and boast a real smile for the first time in days. I might be out of my league on this island with him, but he is definitely out of his league when it comes to challenging me at this game. I’m a master.
“Deal,” I say and rest my fist in the palm of my other hand. “One, two, three.”
My paper covers his rock.
“One, two, three,” he says, and then lets out a quiet victory cheer when his scissors cut my paper. “Last chance,” he warns, followed by a wink.
“One, two, three,” we say in unison. He sighs and falls backwards in defeat, but I’m filled with pure satisfaction. My rock crushed his scissors.
“You win,” he says. “Let’s go.”
I follow him out of the cave, but my contentment is replaced with sadness as we pass the surfboards with Preston’s briefcase leaning against the wall. Next to them sits the life-raft case and an acoustic guitar. I rush outside to avoid looking at them but have to pause against a rock to wait for my eyes to adjust to the blinding sun.
“Now there’s one condition,” he warns. “You can’t go yelling his name. We only look and we have to hurry. This is risky enough as it is. We’ll walk along the beach to the borders of Lambai territory but if you yell his name, you will definitely attract some unwanted attention and… well, I didn’t bring enough arrows. Let’s just leave it at that.”
I notice the bow and quiver slung over his shoulder and sculpted chest, and then I acknowledge his warning by nodding my head. I follow his every step as he climbs over some large rocks, jumping down off the last one onto the beach of white sand. We make our way to the water and I stay a few feet behind him, irritated that he doesn’t seem to be looking, only walking in a path for me to follow. I turn my head from side to side as I walk, searching the water and the rocks on the opposite side, looking for any sign of Preston, Kirk, and Anna.
After a while, we reach the boundary line between the two tribes and walk back the way we came, passing the cave and continuing on until the beach runs into a high cliff. We’ve searched for what has to be over an hour when he stops walking and turns to look at me.
“Satisfied?” he asks, setting his foot on a rock and resting a forearm on his knee.
My heart sinks as the hope of finding Preston dwindl
es into a slim possibility. I fall to my knees and Dax comes over to kneel in front of me, dropping the bow and quiver and wrapping his arms around me, but I try to push him away. He holds on tight. I’m too weak to break away. A strange wailing sound escapes my throat and turns into a sob that echoes the hollowness I feel inside.
“I’m so sorry,” he says, and his voice becomes soothing. “I know it’s hard to accept. We can look again later if you want.” He pauses. “But the truth is, if he did make it to the beach alive, there’s really no place to go unless…”
He doesn’t finish the sentence, but it’s clear what he means. If Preston wandered into the tropical forest alone, into Lambai territory, his chance of survival isn’t good. I stop crying and take some deep breaths, so he releases me and wipes away my tears before he rests his hands on either side of my shoulders. I look up to meet his worried face and muster a faint smile, more for his benefit than mine.
“Can I show you something now?” he asks. “I think it might cheer you up.”
“Okay,” I say, almost in a whisper, desperate to let him take my mind off Preston and escape what has become an unbearable reality.
He helps me up and says, “Follow me and stay close”.
We walk back in the direction of the cave but after a few yards along the beach, we head into the forest bordering the beach. He holds some large palm leaves up for me to walk under and starts making his way through the dense trees and bushes. I can’t tell if he follows a path, but he seems to know exactly where he’s going. The forest is so thick and shaded that I don’t dare let him out of my sight for fear I’ll lose him in the sea of green.
Without any warning, he crouches down and grabs my arm to pull me down with him. “Lay down,” he orders, and I obey, dropping to my stomach on the forest floor. He pulls out a knife and cuts three large palm leaves from a tree and carefully places them over me.
“Don’t move,” he hisses, stepping a few feet to my right. I can barely hear the men’s voices over the loud pounding of my pulse. Dax calls out to them in a strange language and walks away from where I lay silent and frightened. They exchange a few words and then it’s quiet. Too quiet. Where is Dax? How long should I stay here?
An insect makes its way up my leg in a slow, steady path, and my imagination spins out of control. I picture the most horrifying spider my mind can conjure up—a centipede-type creature with millions of tiny legs and sharp fangs searching for the perfect spot to puncture my skin and inflict its poison or drink my blood. I stifle the scream wanting to burst out of my chest and fight every muscle in my body that wants to react to the overwhelming urge to swat it off. I want to jump up from this damp bed of decomposing leaves and dead flowers that house a swarm of other insects and creepy, crawly things, but I hold my breath, and now my heart races out of control at the sound of footsteps approaching. A leaf is lifted off my face, and Dax greets me with a smile before offering his hand to help me up. I brush the dirt, leaves, and insects from my arms and legs, but I can’t brush away the jitters that I know will stay with me for the remainder of the day.
“Sorry about that. Are you okay?” He reaches up to brush the hair off my face and wipe off the dirt clinging to my cheek from the forest floor. “There were a couple of men from the Anwai tribe on their way to the beach to check nets. I told them I was hunting and steered them in another direction. You can relax; they won’t come back this way for quite a while.”
His words were obviously meant to comfort me, but they had the opposite effect.
“So how many of them are wandering around in the forest? How do you know there won’t be more?”
“The tribe isn’t that big, and they stay close to their village for the most part. They don’t want to be discovered, remember? So they use the trees as cover. That’s why I like hanging out at the beach. Only a couple of the men go to the beach every day to check their nets. And I’m familiar with where they go to hunt, so I hunt in different areas. I’ve had three years to get good at avoiding them.”
He keeps talking, sharing all his insider info on his carefully planned daily routines, but I’m not really listening. I’m too busy wondering if Preston could be walking around in the forest just like us, looking for me and managing to avoid a few wandering cannibals. Preston is smart, and unlike me, he seems to always have luck on his side. Dax made a weak effort to find Preston, like he’s already given up on the idea that he could be alive. But I can’t. Preston wouldn’t give up on me. I have to ditch Dax and look some more, and this is my chance. I slow my pace, widening the gap between us, and my heart starts to beat in a nervous rhythm. I wait for him to peek back at me one more time before I start walking in place just in case he’s listening. After a few seconds, I crouch down and wait.
He’s still rambling on. “So when I get a large kill, I share it with the tribe to remind them how useful I am, but also to limit how often they have to go out wandering around because the truth is, most days, I like to pretend I’m living on the island by myself.” He laughs. “That’s funny because sometimes I daydream and wish it was just me and a really hot brunette… you know, spending the day doing fantastically fun things to pass the time.” He laughs again. “Hey, you could audition for the role… and don’t worry… your chances are pretty good since there’s like… no other competition…”
His voice fades away and I sprint into the forest, dodging trees and bushes to make as little noise as possible. After a couple of minutes, I slow to a fast walk, searching the jungle of green for Preston, Kirk, and Anna. I know it won’t take Dax long to discover I’m gone and I slow even more, hoping to hear him when he comes after me. There’s a small break in the density of the trees, and I take the opportunity to stop and look behind me. I listen for footsteps, or my name, but all I hear are the call of birds and strange noises of unimaginable creepy, crawly things in the overgrowth around me. I take a couple of steps backwards and almost lose my balance when my foot sinks, so I turn around and take another step into soft, wet sand.
I hear a sound to my right and leap forward to run into the trees, but my legs are now knee deep in a muddy, sand mixture. Stifling a moan, I take another step, but it’s as though the ground fell out from under me. I sink in up to my waist. Panic rising, I freeze and listen for any more sounds, but now it’s unusually quiet. If I can just make it across this mud pit, I can continue looking for Preston, but when I try to move forward, I sink deeper into the abyss of sand.
Quicksand! The horrifying thought comes too late, and my panic spikes into sheer terror. I’m stuck, and the more I squirm to free myself, the worse it gets. There’s a vine, but it’s just out of reach. I lean toward it and stretch with all my might, but I only manage to worm my way deeper into the mud. It’s almost to my armpits.
Crap! Crap! Crap! What was I thinking? I should have known an escape would end badly.
“Dax! Preston?” I whisper-yell, but then I worry I’ll attract unwanted, cannibal-type company. I’m either going to starve to death or be eaten alive unless Dax or Preston find me first. I tip my head back and look up at the umbrella of trees that stand like giant, green ogres staring down at me, laughing at my foolish stupidity that will ultimately be my impending doom.